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ContributionsDevelopmentIndie

Mushroom Wars 2: Concept to Release

May 3, 2017 — by Industry Contributions

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We are proud to introduce our best mobile game finalist Mushroom Wars 2 made by Zillion Whales! As a winner at the GTP Indie Cup event, Zillion Whales has been given the opportunity to compete at Indie Prize Singapore at Casual Connect Asia 2017. The winter season 2017 of GTP Indie Cup has received more submissions than ever. Our jury board was excited about growing professional level of games from CIS indie developers and Mushroom Wars just proved this growth.

This year at GTP, we continue gathering best talents at our event and the summer season will be more helpful for developers not only by a variety of nominations and prizes but also with new Critic’s Choice award from CIS game press critics and journalists. We hope this story about our finalist will encourage you to take a part in the next Cup.

By Ksenia Shneyveys,  Marketing Communications Manager at Zillion Whales

Mushroom Wars 2 is the newest game of a popular RTS series with a rich history.
Back in 2009, inspired by good old Galcon, the original Mushroom Wars was released. We polished this gameplay mechanics to a luster, added signature fungal setting, introduced morale notion and different types of buildings for greater depth.

Mushroom Wars 2 preserved the features that made Mushroom Wars so enjoyable and supplemented them with MOBA elements such as hero characters with unique sets of skills and co-op 2 vs 2 mode. The game is out on iOS and Apple TV. It is coming to Android, Steam, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One next year.

ContributionsDevelopment

A “Real” How-to for Unreal Engine

April 12, 2017 — by Industry Contributions

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By: Chris Murphy, Unreal Engine Evangelist and Director of Pub Games

Darkness surrounds you, black as night for what seems like light years away. You’ve seen 16 sunrises and sunsets in the past 24-hours. Suddenly, a lightning flash strikes through the quiet. Your head whips around, searching for more under the spotlight. The flash is reflecting off the shiny solar arrays of the space station, and back to the camera. The gravity (and the lack thereof) of the moment hits you: you’re in a 460-ton platform hurtling toward Earth at about 17,150 miles per hour, and you’re a long way from home….or are you?

Virtual Reality

To prepare and train their astronauts for the surreal experience of living on the International Space Station (ISS), NASA uses a perfect replica of ISS developed in Unreal Engine. The fabricated, three-dimensional environment incorporates many of the tasks and challenges that astronauts will face while in the $150-billion ISS, orbiting 240 miles above Earth. This training is critical to their success and ability to explore space.

Tel Aviv 2016Video Coverage

Ron Rejwan: Mastering Prototyping | Casual Connect Video

February 6, 2017 — by Orchid

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If it's ugly and people enjoy it, it will be much more enjoyable once it looks good. - Ron RejwanClick To Tweet

Jelly Button Games co-founder and CTO Ron Rejwan started learning to code at the age of 12 aiming to build games, and has been interested in it since they remember themself. At the age of 18 they were drafted to the ISR army as elite army programmer.

In 2011 Ron founded Jelly Button together with 4 co-founders, and since then has been the company’s CTO. While The Jelly Button team agrees game creation is based on feelings and instincts, they prefer playtesting at early stages to validate it. In their Casual Connect Tel Aviv Ron Rejwan explains their approach to playtesting and prototyping, and shares the tips and tricks one needs to know to follow their footsteps.

DevelopmentIndieStudio Spotlight

The Deep End Games: Building a Bootstrapped, Innovative Game

January 18, 2017 — by Casey Rock

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The Deep End Games made a splash on the gaming scene in mid-2015 when they announced Perception, their first-person narrative horror adventure game that puts players in the shoes of a blind woman who uses her hearing and wits to solve mysteries and escape a deadly presence inside an abandoned mansion. The game and studio has been featured in publications such as IGN, Kotaku and PC Gamer.

Here is a quick look at how the studio and game came to be – and some key takeaways other developers might be able to benefit from.

Dynamic Duo

The Deep End Games is the husband-wife team of Bill and Amanda Gardner – who run the studio out of their home. Bill has a history in game development – working at Irrational Games in many positions and on multiple projects – while Amanda has extensive history in writing and English.

Game DevelopmentTel Aviv 2016Video Coverage

Stav Goldstein: Creating and Enriching the Fictional World

January 5, 2017 — by Catherine Quinton

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How does using the game medium benefit the experience I want to create? - Stav GoldsteinClick To Tweet

Stav Goldstein is a freelance game designer and artist who also teaches game art at Mentor College. In 2015, Stav founded Fireberry Studio while releasing the first chapter of their title The Splitting and has since released the second chapter of the title.

Stav really enjoys the advantages of working freelance, including sticking to their own schedule and choosing to work on projects that are interesting and challenging. But there is also the disadvantage of working from home – it can be lonely at times. At Casual Connect Tel Aviv 2016, Stav shared their experience of developing their game series, as well as gave tips and tricks to the aspiring developers who also want to create worlds of their own. 

DevelopmentExclusive InterviewsGame DevelopmentIndie

Jan Zelený: Chugging Along with Mashinky

January 1, 2017 — by David Radd

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Jan Zelený is the creator of Mashinky

Jan Zelený is the creator of Mashinky, which recently won at GDS Indie Awards 2016. This will allow Jan to show off the game at Indie Prize at Casual Connect Europe.

“It is basically a huge opportunity to spread the word,” said Jan. “Since I am the only one developer of this game, it is very hard to contact a wider audience and get in touch with the press.”

Mashinky is based on players creating their own transportation empire based around trains over multiple time periods. Jan has always loved railway transportation and the way steam engines worked, even owning a model railroad as a child. Besides that, Jan says the primary inspiration for the game was very simple.

Tel Aviv 2016Video Coverage

Shulamit Ferber: Breaking the Typical Mold For Female Game Characters | Casual Connect Video

December 28, 2016 — by David Radd

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Just giving girls a pink version of boy toys is not enough. - Shulamit FerberClick To Tweet

The current industry trend of “more women in tech” can easily be supported from the very beginning, by exposing girls to all kinds of games from a young age, so that they would get familiar with the medium regardless of genre. Educational game developer at Helen Doron Shulamit Ferber emphasizes: it’s important to provide them with relatable characters that wouldn’t be pastel-colored and overly feminized as this isn’t what all girls associate themselves with. Tips and tricks on correct game design for girls get explained in Shulamit’s Casual Connect Tel Aviv session. 

ContributionsDevelopmentIndie

My Boring Story and The Last Tree

December 20, 2016 — by Industry Contributions

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By Dalibor Kamnjanac, an Indie Developer

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Dalibor Kamnjanac coding away

First of all, I must say I didn’t even have a registered company/studio, so wherever it asks me for the company name I’m sticking with my name - Dalibor Kamnjanac, or I type “Ka Studio” or “Llama Entertainment” because that would be the name of my studio if I had one. And yes, I’m obsessed with llamas.

So, my story is pretty interesting (I hope you’ll agree with me at the end of it), because I’m absolutely a “one man army” developer and I believe that the best thing that happen to me would be that I quit my (very low paying) job six months ago. Why? Because in that moment I decided to completely dive in game development. Even though I am neither a programmer or a designer and I knew that it could go wrong in so many ways, it was still very motivating, especially because of my previous job. I knew that I can’t express myself in the electromechanical industry either. I believed that I could do well in the management sector since I graduated. And above all, when I graduated in December last year, I came to Italy from Serbia where I grew up and also graduated.

Wait, What?

Tel Aviv 2016Video Coverage

Shalev Moran: Winning the Exhibition | Casual Connect Video

December 18, 2016 — by David Radd

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Make your game unkillable. - Shalev MoranClick To Tweet

Shalev Moran  is Games Program Director for Print Screen Festival in Holon. He also teaches Narrative and History of Digital Games at Shenkar College of Art and Design.

“Print Screen Festival is an international festival for digital culture, and probably the most important public event around that field in Israel,” said Shalev. “I’ve been curating a games program for it since 2013. My program usually includes an exhibition of indie games centered around a particular theme, and a series of talks, screenings and performances.” 

At Casual Connect Tel Aviv, Shalev described the dos and don’ts of showing your game in exhibition. “The huge mistake is exhibiting a build that’s just the full game, or whatever they currently have that’s closest to being feature-complete and content-complete,” said Shalev. “An exhibition build should be a concise, measured taste of your game, and in my talk I break this down into a bunch of guidelines.” See more in Shalev’s lecture video. 

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